Tracking Lions, Myth, and Wilderness in Samburu by Jon Turk Book Review

Long-time friend of PaddlingLight, Jon Turk has a new book coming out. Called Tracking Lions, Myth, and Wilderness in Samburu, the book explores humanity’s evolutionary need to tell stories and how that need fails us now. As with Turk’s other books, he wraps the scientific and philosophical ideas in the book within an adventure narrative. In this case, the adventure narrative is a journey to the mountains and plains of the Samburu.

If you haven’t read Jon Turk before, you’re missing out. His books engage you and draw you in while exploring human history, mythology and adventure while transcending a typical adventure story. Jon is also a kayaker and completed one of the biggest kayaking adventures undertaken in modern times. He paddled from Japan to Alaska following a potential route of the Jomon. He wrote about the trip in his book In In the Wake of the Jomon: Stone Age Mariners and a Voyage Across the Pacific and the follow up The Raven’s Gift. While you don’t need to have read his other books to get into this one, because references are made to In the Wake of and The Raven’s Gift, you may want to pick them up.

The story that unfolds in Tracking Lions, Myth, and Wilderness in Samburu is that almost on a whim, Turk accepts an invite to track lions with the Samburu. He finds himself in a resort helping out the owner and the locals that work there. Then political trouble strikes and his local friends hide him in the woods. I won’t give away more of the plot, but throughout the journey there, you get the feeling that there’s greater danger from humans than from animals.

The book itself explores the mythology that humanity tells itself and how that mythology creates tribalism. The basic premise is that if one can find contentment, then one can avoid the pitfalls of human mythology and avoid becoming a pawn in a strongman’s mass movement that might have questionable goals and ethics, namely power for the strongman and violence from the followers. A recent example of a mythology that caused violence is the big lie that caused the January 6 Capitol Insurrection in the United States. The premise, in a way, strikes me in its similarity to the Buddhist view of suffering, the cause, and how to avoid it. That is if you don’t consider Buddhism a religion to follow and more of a way to explain the world around us. See: the Zen Buddhist koan, “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him!“

Turk takes that basic premise, wraps it around an adventure narrative and hangs a significant amount of scientific evidence upon it. After he fills out his premise, he uses his wilderness flow state experiences to point a way forward. Wilderness flow could mean being in the moment in wilderness or experiencing it in other ways, like, for example, playing an instrument, if that’s your thing, or paddling a canoe or kayak. Turk suggests that humanity could experience a consciousness revolution like it did at the dawn of humanity when the species had dwindled to approximately 2,000 individuals nearing extinction. At that time, humanity faced an environmental existential threat in the same way that humanity faces the existential threat of global warming and climate change today. Humanity survived at the dawn of humanity crisis and then thrived in culture, tools and population growth. The premise holds that a consciousness revolution could happen now if humanity embraces the contentment that comes through the wilderness flow experience. That consciousness revolution could move humanity beyond the climate crisis to a brighter future.

Part of the joy in reading Turk is how he weaves together what early in the book might seem unrelated concepts into a cohesive whole, so I won’t give away more. If you enjoy adventure narratives and want to read a book from one of humanity’s best adventure writers then give Tracking Lions, Myth, and Wilderness in Samburu a shake. I enjoyed it thoroughly.

The Kindle version of the book released on Sept. 17th. You can pre-order the print version now.